US History Textbook Activities

Do you use a textbook in your US history classes? If so, I have a TON of amazing resources that will work perfectly with your textbook but are far more interactive, rigorous, and engaging than any supplemental resources you may currently have.

In 10+ years teaching American History, I created my own lesson plans and activities that engaged my students, had them critically analyze history, and were creative so they were never bored with regular textbook materials.

These resources are amazing for 8th grade United States History but also work well from 7th grade to 10th grade or 11th grade as well.

Now, you can use ALL of these amazing resources in your American History classes! I have organized all of them perfectly into lesson plans and units for the entire school year in US History. You can download a PDF of free activities here and test them out for yourself!

You can use your Americans, American Vision, American Journey, or American Pageant textbook as a classroom resource to pair with any of the activities or use the hundreds of online links, videos, secondary source readings, or other activities included in the curriculum.

The curriculum is so thorough that you can even forgo a textbook altogether and just use the resources you can download for every lesson! We also have tons of links to free online textbook readings you can use as well. Check out the free lessons you can download here for a small taste of what they're like.

Every lesson is fully planned out for you from start to finish! Most start with a warm up activity to get students on task the minute they walk into your room. Then, you have either a PowerPoint with guided notes to help students focus on the topic along with several videos to provide further detail. Next, students might dive into a primary source analysis station rotation, cooperative learning activity, or project that has them thinking critically about what you covered.

I promise you that you will not find a more thorough or engaging set of American History resources anywhere. You can have a full school year of stress-free lesson planning because literally every class period is planned out for you.

From Day 1 and introductions to your unit through to review and assessment, everything in our curriculum is perfectly organized. You can pair your US History textbook with any of the interactive notebooks for an easy to use in-class activity or homework. Or use the Digital Google Notebook pages for students to use with laptops, Chromebooks, or their own devices.